Doctor Criminale

by Malcolm Bradbury

  The church bells of Lausanne were chiming. The lobby of the Hotel Zwingli had, I saw, strangely changed. The grim daughter of the house had departed her post at the desk. In her place stood a large, big-biceped man in an unsleeved black sweatshirt, who evidently ran a different kind of regime. He was freely handing out keys-to two very oddly sorted couples – two darkskinned middle-aged men, accompanied by two much younger girls – who hurried upstairs with some speed. Calvinism, it seemed, stopped sharply at midnight. I got some jetons from the muscleman at the desk, and went over to the booth in the corner. But the nightlife of Vienna was evidently just as hectic. At the Hotel de France they told me that Lavinia had left early in the morning, and had still not returned to her room.

  I was just about to go upstairs again when I remembered a promise I’d made. It was not one I wanted to keep, but a promise is a promise. I put more jetons into the machine, and called Barolo. I had no real hope of getting through; the Villa Barolo was, after all, famous for protecting its distinguished guests from any outside interference. I was quite wrong: the call connected almost immediately. ‘Ja, Bruckner?’ said a voice on the other end. ‘This is Francis Jay in Lausanne,’ I said. ‘Please, you do not know who is listening,’ said Bruckner, ‘“It is your contact at your destination.” Now, is the subject at the designated location?’ ‘Well yes, he is,’ I said. ‘The female subject also?’ asked Bruckner. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Have their actions been in any way unusual?’ ‘No, very usual,’ I said, ‘They’re just attending another congress. The designated location’s very smart, by the way. I don’t know how the man affords it. Unless it’s his Western royalties.’ ‘Please?’ asked Bruckner, ‘His what did you say?’ ‘The profits from his books in the West,’ I said, ‘He keeps them here in Swiss banks.’ ‘You know this definitely?’ asked Bruckner. ‘Yes,’ I said. There was a long pause at the other end.

  ‘The name of your hotel?’ asked Bruckner suddenly. ‘The Zwingli at Ouchy,’ I said, ‘I don’t recommend it at all. It’s a cross between a monastery and a brothel.’ I saw the muscleman look­ing at me. ‘Good, stay there all day tomorrow,’ said Bruckner, ‘Do not leave, I will join you as soon as possible.’ ‘You will?’ I asked. ‘You have done your work well. I congratulate you,’ said Bruckner, ‘He has not spotted you?’ ‘Yes, I had a long talk with him,’ I said. ‘That was careless, but no-matter,’ said Bruckner, ‘Arouse his suspicions no further. You have been a mine of information.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘What about?’ ‘Now I have something for you,’ said Bruckner, ‘Your quarry, you understand me, has fled hurriedly to Vienna. You were right there also, he is undoubtedly a part of it.’ ‘A part of what?’ I asked. ‘We have said far too much already,’ said Cosima, ‘Do not speak to anyone. Now good-night, my friend, and expect me sometime in the morning.’ I slowly put down the phone. I had the uneasy feeling it had been a big mistake to call Cosima Bruckner.

  I didn’t sleep well that night. Despite the fact that I was well away from Sigmund’s Vienna, I had a dream that greatly disturbed me. I was on a television programme on the subject of the future, in which I was the expert. The television studio had a vast set and a floor that rocked back and forth. Then I found myself discussing the fortunes of an unknown Eastern European country with its ambassador, who contradicted me in every detail. A limousine then drove me, late at night, to a house in which I understood I had once lived. Now it was totally unfamiliar, and being rebuilt. In the bedroom, builders’ and decorators’ ladders stood everywhere, and as I watched a paintpot toppled and spilled over the sheets and pillows of the bed in which I had slept as a child. There was a violent noise of breaking glass, and I was awake. There was a violent noise of breaking glass: someone from the hotel was disposing of last night’s bottles in the skip in the courtyard down below. Then I remembered Ildiko, two floors down. I wished that I was with her, or she with me.

  *

  Early next morning, just after seven, I hurried down to her room. The door was unlocked; I looked inside. There was her luggage, clothes, shopping bags, shopping, all thrown around in the same disorganized profusion I knew from Barolo. Her trace was everywhere; of her presence, no sign. It was becoming all too familiar, all too unnerving. I hurried down to the desk; Swiss Calvinism had resumed, the night-time muscleman was gone, and the stern daughter of the house stood behind reception. I asked for Ildiko. ‘She went out, m’sieu, half an hour past,’ said the girl rebukingly, ‘Also she did not leave her key.’ ‘Did she say where she was going?’ I asked. ‘Non, m’sieu,’ she said, ‘But she asked me some questions about where are the best shops. We have very good shops in Lausanne.’ ‘Of course,’ I said, and felt in my pocket for my wallet. It was gone, naturally; then I remembered she had not given it back to me the night before at the pier. Already the good shopkeepers of Lausanne would be rubbing their hands with delight as they noted the sudden upsurge in the day’s takings.

  My first reaction was to hurry up the street in pursuit of her. Then I remembered the instructions of Cosima Bruckner. I went across the street, bought an English newspaper, and brought it back to the hotel café, where I ordered coffee and rolls. I opened the paper to discover that, during my absence, the world had taken the opportunity to fall into terrible confusion. The New World Order was already becoming all too like the Old World order. American troops, tanks and planes were being shipped into Saudi Arabia, and a large international fleet was steaming up the Persian Gulf. Saddam Hussein was crying defiance and threatening to explode a nuclear device. The beginnings of a winter famine were occurring in Soviet Russia. The CDU in what was formerly Eastern Germany was being accused of shifting 32 million deutschmarks in suitcases to Luxemburg over the previous year. There was again something wrong with a footballer called Gazza.

  From time to time I checked the street, hoping to see Ildiko heaving into sight, with, I hoped, as few plastic shopping bags as possible. Once or twice I slipped upstairs to check her room. Her things were there; she was not. Coming downstairs after my third check, I noticed that a pair of black leather trousers stood at the desk, talking to the dour receptionist. I recognized them at once, of course: ‘Miss Bruckner,’ I called. ‘Remember, you have not seen me at all,’ said Cosima to the girl at the desk; then she came over to me and took me by the arm. ‘Please, names are not necessary,’ she said, ‘Ask no questions. Walk quietly outside into the street with me. There you will see a black car. Get into the back of it.’ When Cosima ordered, one somehow obeyed. I have to admit there was something rather thrilling about the world of Cosima Bruckner.

  A black Mercedes waited outside the hotel, illegally parked, a severe offence in Switzerland. A driver in dark sunglasses sat behind the wheel. I got in the back; Cosima shoved in beside me. ‘Now, this bank you mentioned,’ she said, ‘The one where Criminale keeps his accounts. You know the name of it?’ ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘You said you had evidence,’ said Bruckner, ‘What do you know? It is important.’ ‘Has he done something wrong?’ I asked. ‘That does not concern you,’ said Cosima. ‘Well, I did glimpse some bank statement on his desk at Barolo,’ I said, ‘Is there something called the Bruger Zugerbank?’ ‘Ja, ja, Fräulein Bruckner,’ said the driver. ‘Ah, you know it,’ said Cosima, ‘Go there quickly, Hans.’ The car roared up the street. ‘I don’t see how there can be anything wrong with Criminale’s accounts,’ I said, ‘He’s a world-famous author.’ ‘Of course, the perfect cover,’ said Cosima Bruckner. ‘For what?’ I asked, ‘You read too many spy stories, Cosima.’

  A little later, Cosima Bruckner and I sat on modernist chairs in the elegant, glass-desked offices of Herr Max Patli, manager of the evidently extensive branch of the Lausanne Bruger Zugerbank. He looked over his gold-rimmed spectacles at us. ‘I understand very well you represent the European Community,’ he said, looking at some documents Cosima had put in front of him, ‘But you know the Commission has no jurisdiction in Suisse.’ ‘I think you are aware we have certain co-operations,’ said Cosima. ‘Money i
s the most delicate of all matters, Fräulein Bruckner,’ said Herr Patli, sitting there in his fine suit, ‘Here we must always preserve our fine tradition of banking secrecy. It is most precious to us. However, may I propose you try me with your questions, and I will see how I can answer.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Cosima Bruckner, ‘Does a Doctor Bazlo Criminale hold an account here?’ ‘An interesting question, Fraulein Bruckner,’ said Herr Patli, ‘He does not, and this I can say definitely.’ ‘You don’t need to check?’ asked Bruckner. ‘No, this is quite unnecessary,’ said Patli, ‘That is because any account he might or might not have had here was closed earlier today.’ ‘It was closed?’ asked Bruckner, ‘By Doctor Criminale himself?’ ‘No, not by the Doctor himself,’ said Patli. ‘There was another signatory?’ asked Bruckner. ‘If there had happened to be an account here, which I have not admitted, I think you would find it would be of that type,’ said Patli cautiously. ‘And the name of the second signatory?’ asked Bruckner. ‘Of course I cannot give her name, Fräulein Bruckner,’ said Patli, ‘This would be quite against the tradition of banking secrecy.’ ‘But several parties do have access to this account, do they, Herr Patli?’ ‘Well,’ said Patli cautiously, ‘Only with proper authorizations. Correct procedures are always observed, even with governments outside the IMF, if you understand me.’

  ‘I understand you very well, Herr Patli,’ said Cosima Bruckner, ‘Only one more question. Do you know of other similar accounts in banks in Lausanne?’ ‘I am afraid I can again tell you nothing, Fräulein Bruckner,’ said Patli, ‘I can only suggest that you go to the six leading banks here and ask exactly the same questions.’ ‘Thank you, Herr Patli, you have been very helpful,’ said Cosima, getting up from her chair. ‘I hope not,’ said Patli, rising to shake her hand, ‘I should not like you to think we do anything to help external investigations. On the other hand we expect to be members of the European Community ourselves quite shortly. For that reason we are pleased to offer the Commission a little help, so long as it has not been too much. Wiedersehen, Fräulein Bruckner. Good day, sir. I wonder, may we offer you any of our services? A pension, perhaps? Remember, we are the best in the world.’ ‘No, thank you,’ I said, and we left.

  ‘So, a woman,’ said Cosima Bruckner very thoughtfully, as we drove back in the car towards the Hotel Zwingli, ‘A woman who somehow has access to Criminale’s special account. Who do you think? Miss Belli?’ ‘Possibly,’ I said cautiously, ‘It could be any one of dozens. Sepulchra, Gertla, Pia, Irini . . .’ ‘Who are all these people?’ asked Cosima. ‘Oh, his wives and so on,’ I said, ‘Criminale was close to a great many women. It was one of his specialities, to be honest.’ ‘So that is all you know?’ That’s all,’ I said. ‘Well, you too have been very helpful,’ said Cosima, ‘Evidently we were just too late, but it is not your fault.’ ‘Anything for Europe,’ I said. ‘If you do think of anything more, if you discover anything else, please call me at the Hotel Movenpick,’ said Cosima, ‘At any time of day or night.’ ‘Of course,’ I said, getting out of the black car outside the Hotel Zwingli, ‘But I’m afraid that’s everything I know.’

  But I knew, of course. I knew that when I went up the stairs Ildiko’s room would be empty, all her scattered things cleared up and gone. I knew that the shops of Lausanne would have returned by now to their usual Swiss calm and sobriety, and that Ildiko would almost certainly be somewhere quite different, probably with a large proportion of Bazlo Criminale’s Western royalties stuffed somewhere into her ever-expanding luggage. The door of her room was unlocked, so I walked in. The room was bare and unwelcoming, the bed stripped to essentials, ready for the next unfortunate guest. I walked slowly upstairs to my own room, thinking I probably knew very well what had happened, and why Ildiko had gone to such trouble to come to Lausanne. I also knew that I missed her already, and desperately wanted to see her again. I unlocked my bedroom door and went inside. In the middle of the bed a small brown object lay: my wallet. I picked it up and opened it, wondering whether not only Bazlo’s royalties but my entire credit-card collection had left town with Ildiko.

  Paper showered on the floor: extraordinary paper, crisp new paper, paper in coloured rectangles, paper that was more than paper, paper in numbered denominations, that special kind of paper that we call money. I picked up the Swiss francs that lay around everywhere, stacked them, and after a moment began to count. It added up to around a hundred thousand francs, give or take a piece of paper or two. I wasn’t sure what that amounted to, but it was, I knew, a very large sum. Amid this potent paper was another paper, a folded white note, equally valuable to me. It read: ‘Francis, Something for you under the table. You see I really do like to pay you back for this shopping in the end. Also to thank you for a very nice journey, Francis. Spend this how you like, but think of me when you do it. Be lucky with your televisions programme. Criminale is more interesting than you think. I believe I am also. Take care! and please try hard now to be a little bit more Hungarian. Love + kisses, Ildiko.’

  I sat on the bed and looked at both: the wad of money, Ildiko’s little note. I had lost her, and how I regretted it. It could have i been my fault, but I didn’t know that; probably I had never had her in the first place. I tried to imagine what had happened at the bank that day. I had seen Ildiko clean out my own credit-card account; maybe that kind of thing was a habit with her. So had that been the point all along? When she first met me in Budapest, was she already out to trick the great philosopher, reach his Lausanne accounts, clear out his holdings? I had thought she’d truly enjoyed travelling with me, but when it came to it even I had to admit that a large secret hard-currency bank account made a much more convincing lure. She’d been his publisher known his international accounts, maybe even set some of them up in the first place. Or perhaps it was Bazlo’s flight from Barolo that had decided her that now was the time to cut her losses and take her cut. At any rate, I had little doubt that Ildiko was by now, far off in some safe place, shopping away to her dear heart’s content.

  But if this was right, that meant the money I was holding in my hand was funny money, not the kind of money I ought to be holding in my hand at all. How much was there, what was it worth? I went down to the lobby, peered over the dour receptionist, and checked the Change board on the wall. Then I went into the terrace café and checked through my wallet again. The stuff I had in there came to more than forty thousand pounds, a vast amount more than even Ildiko could possibly have drawn on my credit-card accounts, even if just for luck you added in a high rate of interest. I glanced round, looked at it again. There lay the great wad of notes, paper that was so much more than paper; folded into them was the other note she had left there. Both paper texts were, I realized, equally hard to interrogate, decipher, deconstruct. Both of them could be read in two quite different ways. Perhaps they were both deeds of love, acts of fondness, expressions of a generosity far greater than any I had managed to show to her. Or perhaps they were gifts under the table in a rather different sense. Could it be that I was being bought off, welcomed into the same world that, I now began suspecting, Bazlo Criminale had been living in for years? Was the point that I should really learn how to be Hungarian – keep silent, ask no more questions, take my winnings, disappear home?

  So what could I – a fine upstanding young man, remember – do with this suspect, perhaps poisoned chalice? Sitting there on the same terrace where I had sat with Ildiko just the evening before, I found it strangely hard to decide. I could of course go to Cosima Bruckner, apparently available either by day or night just along the promenade at the Hotel Movenpick. But that meant betraying Ildiko Hazy, and that was not something I cared to do. Or I could go along the promenade in the other direction to the Hotel Beau Rivage Palace and hand the money to Bazlo Criminale, presumably its rightful owner. But was he its rightful owner? If he was, why was Cosima Bruckner investigating his accounts with such zeal? The more I thought things over, the more I saw I’d been blind in almost every way. While I’d be
en conducting my small quest for Bazlo Criminale, far more serious and terrible pursuits had been happening, one of them right under my nose. As the note in my hand said, both Bazlo and Ildiko were far more interesting – their lives far more complex, obscure, and no doubt deceitful – than I had troubled, in my innocence, to imagine.

  *

  Later that night I walked along the promenade towards the Beau Rivage Palace, visiting its splendours for the very first time. I went into the bright downstairs brasserie, the place where the jeunesse dorée of Lausanne evidently gathered, as you could tell at once from the exotic machinery lined up outside. There they all were, the beautiful young, talking and laughing and kissing and groping each other with what, by strict Swiss standards, must surely have been the gayest abandon. I ordered a beer, then several more. Well, why not? For once I was not on a very tight budget, and could freely afford it. I wasn’t, in fact, in the least sure just what I meant to do next. But, after a while and a beer or several, I got up and walked through into the main lobby of the hotel. White-robed sheikhs passed by; a frock-coated clerk stood dignified behind the vast reception desk. There, posing as exactly what I really was, a visiting British journalist, I explained that I’d just come a long way to arrange an interview with Doctor Bazlo Criminale, who was, I understood, a guest in the hotel.

  The clerk looked at me, said, ‘Un moment, m’sieu,’ and opened a thick register on the desk. Behind him on the wall was a large board, headed ‘Rates of Exchange’; I looked down it and considered the value of my wallet again. More than forty thousand pounds; for once I was entitled, entirely entitled, to be a client of the Beau Rivage Palace. ‘Doctor and Madame Criminale, oui?’ said the clerk, looking up. ‘Actually if he’s not there it doesn’t really matter,’ I murmured. ‘No, m’sieu, I am afraid you are just a little too late,’ said the clerk, ‘They checked out of the penthouse suite this afternoon. It was a little sudden, I understand.’ ‘Really,’ I said, ‘My editor will be disappointed.’ ‘Quel dommage, m’sieu,’ said the clerk. ‘I don’t suppose you know where they’ve gone?’ I asked, opening my wallet wide. The clerk glanced inside and said, ‘Well, m’sieu, I believe to India. I think if you go there you will find them somewhere.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said, handing over a note. ‘You are most gentil, m’sieu,’ said the clerk; evidently I had been extraordinarily generous. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said, and walked out of the hotel and across to the lakeside promenade.